


A Road Paved Blind

by crownedcirce



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Bonnie & Clyde, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Crime, M/M, Organized Crime, Sex Work, Sex Worker Yuri Plisetsky, Slow Burn, future sex violence and shenanigans with a texas drawl slapped on top, otayuri - Freeform, ride or die - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:29:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcirce/pseuds/crownedcirce
Summary: I promised myself I wouldn’t be locked up again. We promised we’d keep on goin til’ the day we died. That day has come.





	1. A Tree Born Crooked

**Author's Note:**

> I'm nervous about this but here, I present you with a Bonnie and Clyde/Organised Crime AU. I am a history nerd and I have done a lot of research for this but alas this is by no means my specialty and obviously there is a lot of artistic license going on here so don't take me too seriously. I am also Australian... and have never been to Texas. SO. I apologise in advance but please feel free to correct me on anything I maybe have gotten a little confused with.
> 
> Also please take note of any content warnings I put up here in these notes, I'd like everyone to have a safe reading experience.  
> cw ch.1: period-typical homophobia, mentions of abuse.
> 
> The title of this fic was pulled from both Bonnie Parker's poem titled "The Trail's End" and "Life From The Gutter Up" by David Otis.  
> The title of this chapter was taken from "How's It Gonna End" by Tom Waits.

_The road was so dimly lighted_  
_there were no highway signs to guide._  
_But they made up their minds;_  
_if all roads were blind,_  
_they wouldn't give up till they died._  
  
_The road gets dimmer and dimmer_  
_sometimes you can hardly see._  
_But it's fight man to man_  
_and do all you can,_ _  
_ for they know they can never be free.

\- Bonnie Parker

 

**Otabek**

**_May 22, 1934_ **

  
  


When I was just a kid my pa said to me that a tree born crooked would never grow straight. Now, I don’t know anymore if he was talking about the time I stole the collection plate from church in order to buy a candy bar when I was nine years old, or the time he caught me kissing a boy from school behind the service station my father owned when I was sixteen.

 

I suppose either way, he was right.

 

My career as a thief began with that collection plate, you see, and it continued on to stealing chickens with my older brother. Pa said it was the open gateway to all my other sins. Everyone seems to think it was my brother that lead me astray but boy, I’d be the first one to admit it was all my idea in the first place. My father knows it too.

 

How else would there be anything on the dinner table that night if we didn’t? The dust bowl hadn’t started yet but that’s what we lived in. We lived in a bowl of dust and it didn’t do anyone any good. I never did apologize for stealing, I wasn’t sorry. Not when my baby sister was no longer crying from hunger pains.

 

There never really was enough words you could shove together in a sentence in order to apologize anyway. Not when every question directed at you was expected to start and end with a “yes, ma’am” or a “no, sir”. Apologizing was clunky and nobody believed you anyway. Nobody ever believed a kid like me. No, I was stood on a dusty porch in Telico instead, dressed for church on a Sunday and being forced to repeat “thou shalt not steal” before I was allowed to step a single toe inside God’s house.

 

Pa was right when he said I’d never grow straight but “I’m sorry” was never a sentiment he ever instilled in me. Instead, it was just the memorized God-fearing lines that he found to have the utmost importance. “I’m sorry” was never expected to be uttered under the roof of that farmhouse or our tent in West Dallas, or even within the walls of his service station later on when he had saved enough. But, sometimes it was spelled out anyway across my back in angry, red lines caused by the leather of his belt. There was no time to apologize when I was sixteen and being dragged away from the boy my lips were attached to only seconds before. There was no time to apologize when my father packed my bags for me and there was no expectation of an apology when I left home with a bruised cheekbone, a swollen eye and a busted up lip.

 

I never apologized to my pa. Never thanked him either, for the life he gave me. I may have been born crooked but he didn’t provide much more than fear to try and set me straight. Maybe that’s why in 1930 at twenty years old, I was on the run from the law in a stolen Model A Ford after robbing a few gas stations down in Waco. Fear driving me from the consequences instead of owning up to being a poor man who just needed some cash for food.

 

Of course, that’s not the only reason I’d done it, but it was reason enough.

 

Perhaps it’s the reason I take what I want and let the adrenaline be the thing that gets me away. Never having to apologize but knowing that the repercussions of my actions are painful. Perhaps it’s the reason local stores and gas stations weren’t enough for me for very long. Perhaps, it’s why banks became high up on my list of targets. But maybe, never having to apologize verbally was the reason a boy with angel hair and the eyes of a soldier became the thing that I wanted to steal away more than anything in this world. I wanted something priceless.

 

My father wasn’t there to beat an “I’m sorry” out of me or spell it out on my bare skin, anyway.

 

My sins never really did stop even after I was caught. I was never one for paying my dues. It wasn’t my style.

 

The roads have been blind. They were paved that way by hand. It’s time I shine the headlights on them now. I got what I wanted. We did. He got his fame, and I got him.

 

I promised myself I wouldn’t be locked up again. We promised we’d keep on goin til’ the day we died. That day has come. I’ll take the belt of consequence now. Even if it comes in the form of an ammunition strip. He’s the soldier I knew him to be the day I met him and he won’t stop until I do. I know it. It’s time.

 

I think he knows it too.


	2. On The Lost Highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has a mop of blonde, shaggy hair that sat at a length that any good, Christian mother would curse and take a pair of clippers to herself... A feeling in my gut tells me that I should be walking away right about now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? I'm actually continuing a thing? 
> 
> Please take note of any content warnings I put up here in these notes, I'd like everyone to have a safe reading experience.  
> cw ch.2: period-typical homophobia, mentions of abuse.
> 
> The title of this chapter was taken from: "Lost Highway" by Hank Williams. 
> 
> p.s I know absolutely nothing about cars, I’m sorry!
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr @ punktsuki x

**Otabek**

**January 20, 1930**

 

I write to my mother sometimes. Sometimes, she replies. Tells me to come home. That’s usually when she knows I’m overstaying my welcome at a friend’s home.

 

I _have_ been home since I left when I was sixteen. Sometimes it’s nice to have a roof over your head. One you haven’t stolen and one that isn’t held up by four wheels and a motor… even if it were built by the same hands that left purpling bruises on your skin a few years before.

 

She knows the trouble I get into. She nods and looks the other way when I tell her “It was an accident, I just kept the rental car too long, is all” or “Ma, I just did what I had to do to get by.” I think sometimes she can see the road I’m heading down. Knows what’s at the end for me. God’s been kind enough to show her. He turned his back on me a long time ago but she knows how I’ll end up. She warns me when she writes. She’s good to me, but I drive down this lost highway regardless and I do it blind.

 

My father is a different story. He’d prefer to forget I was even born.

 

He saw it coming too, I think. From the time I was ten years old I had a habit of sneaking out the door with his gun and shooting canned-targets off our fence that needed mending. He’d tan my hide every darn time. What he didn’t expect though was his son running after other bright-eyed boys instead of catching himself a girl. Truthfully, I’m sure he’d much prefer a felon for a son than a queer. It’s too bad, God blessed him with both.

 

He’s ill sometimes. Some days he’s resting up when I arrive, once I’ve realised I have nowhere else to go. No money for a motel room. On his well days though, I don’t sleep. He doesn’t speak. Barely looks at me, but I know he’d like me dead. I don’t stay long when I’m there, either. I know I’m not welcome, really. I only show my face for my mother’s sanity, to give her living proof that I’m still alive. Well, that and to get some food in my belly… if they have any around. I can always feel the rickety walls of my childhood home closing in on me though, threatening to collapse and bury me on the dusty land I always swore I’d escape from.

 

I should appreciate the small things in life, I know. I should appreciate the home I was given, especially considering home was just a goddamn tent when I was pretty small. It wasn’t until I was older that we had four semi-stable walls. But, staying in one place for more than a couple nights seems strange to me now.

 

I get antsy.

 

I try to stomp down the memories of waking up in the heat of the morning, the busy hum of my brothers getting up for school and for work and shoving each other around the place. We never did have any regard for how small our tiny home in West Dallas was. No matter how nice it is to have a home though, I can’t let myself believe I have one. Not anymore. Honestly, I don’t know that I ever did. I don’t belong there. I haven’t allowed myself to think that I do since I was sixteen. Not since the day I was left to wonder from town to town on my own with one task at hand.

 

Surviving.

 

The past is past though and looking back is for people without a future, no direction. I have one, I’m building it all up for myself. Where I belong now is behind the wheel, the motor sending vibrations through my chest to remind me that my heart is still beating. My home is on the road, dust clouding up behind a stolen Ford and a bag full of cash riding in the passenger seat.

 

Where I’ll belong soon enough though, is the front page news.

~ ❈ ~

 

I’d been driving down a constant dirt road for about an hour, eyes so wide they were drying out, and a heart so jittery it flipped every time the Model A Ford ran over a bump in the road. Which was often. It made the windows shake and vibrate like the wavering level of my confidence in doing this job alone. I had no lookout back in Waco and despite the fact that a whole hour is usually enough for me to get away, I can’t help but feel like there’s something _off_.

 

It’s a nice car. Fast, too. Faster than any of the vehicles I’ve seen any of the cops driving around here, I can push it to about fifty-five without blowing a gasket. I usually scope them out before a hit. I like to make sure I have a good chance at a get away. My brother would say that I like to work smart, not hard. But I _do_ work hard, I work hard at ensuring that my thrill for the chase doesn’t land me in County Jail. I don’t know anyone willing or rich enough to pay my bail and I’d quite like to be known as the lawless man who always gets away, thank you very much.

 

I’m about twenty minutes outside Dallas when the engine of the Model A groans, causing the entire vehicle to come to sudden, halting stop. I try to trip the ignition and get nothing, not even a half-assed rumble. Naturally, I resort to cursing it to Hell instead. For all I know about picking out the fastest getaway cars, and for all the time I spent at my father’s service station - I don’t know shit about how they run past which wires get the darn things to start. I was always too busy appreciating the aesthetic qualities of the guys bringing their cars into the shop anyway. I was young and I was dumb. Maybe I still am, but I guess all my sins catch up to me in the end.

 

I sit in the front seat, hands on the steering wheel, my back hunched over and my head resting on top of my hands as the car sits at a standstill. I’m not quite defeated, but I’m well on my way. For a moment, I contemplate wandering my way over to West Dallas to give Ma a visit. There _is_ a reason I’ve been robbing so close to home after all. No lookout means I need a plan B. I’d only taken a couple hundred dollars and I hadn’t heard a peep from the law since I sped out of Waco, but it might be my only option now. Truth be told, the idea of stepping foot inside my parent’s home has my chest clenching and my lungs seizing up. That place is a _last_ resort.

 

I resign myself to getting out of the car at least, making sure that the cash from the Texaco in Waco is still stuffed in my trouser pockets. There isn’t much around but dead and dying grass and a dusty road that runs for miles ahead. I know it well enough. It’s the road that no longer leads me home. It did once, but the past is past. I’m lost to them now, I’m too late to pray for and I’m all but forgotten until I show my face. Today might have to be the day that I remind them I’m still here.

 

I lean against the body of the Model A. The midday sun is harsh and bright and its made the metal of the car heat up like a pan on a gas stove top. I don’t move. It’s oddly comforting, but I need to think fast. I don’t see many other alternatives.

 

As I start walking it doesn’t take long for the dry wind blustering south to fill my lungs with dirt and dust, burning my throat and whipping at my eyelashes. Once I’m only about 200 metres down the road I hear the tick and rumble of an engine. My heart just about jumps up into my throat before I tell myself to breathe. _Remember your manners, flash a smile_ . _A robbery? No. Sir, haven’t heard a thing about it._

 

“Just havin’ a spot of car trouble, Sir. I-” I speak as calm and drawled out as I possibly can without sounding like an asshole. I’m on edge. I am technically a fugitive, afterall. Any extra attention can be bad attention. I don’t look in the direction of the car. _Look straight on ahead, Altin_.

 

“Car trouble, you say?” The voice that spoke was a lot softer and not as masculine or gruff as I’d initially expected. My head whipped right on over to the right to get a look at the speaker. _Darn it, Altin_. What came into view though, wasn’t an officer. No navy-suited uniform, no dumb hat perched atop an egg-shaped head. Quite the opposite, actually. I was met with a young boy, about my age maybe. His skin was pale but not in a sick, pasty way. It was like porcelain. You don’t see that much around here, the sun normally gets boys while they’re breaking their backs working. He wasn’t a farm boy, that’s for sure. He has a mop of blonde, shaggy hair that sat at a length that any good, Christian mother would curse and take a pair of clippers to herself.

 

He wore a white button down with red trim, a name was embroidered in cursive, red stitching on his left breast pocket. _Viktor’s,_ It read. I cocked my head to the side. A busboy? Busboys can’t afford cars. Not any sort of decent one anyway. I eyed the dusty, black Model T cautiously. He leaned his head to the side just as curiously. He was kinda… dainty. He was watching me.

 

“You know anything about cars?” I raised an eyebrow, challenging. The fucker smirked.

 

“No. But I _can_ give you a ride into town,” He drawled. “I’m on my way to work, you can use the phone.” He did that thing with his eyes. You know the one - the sly look that drags up your entire body, drags down and then back up again? _Those eyes._ They god damn sparkled but they were strong. Like a personal, green brand of steel. He sure as hell looked soft but I’m willing to bet he’s a soldier. Tough and smart. A feeling in my gut tells me that I should be walking away right about now.

 

His eyes and petite little smile have me doing the exact opposite.

 

I walk around to the passenger side, trying as hard as I possibly can to look like I’m in no hurry. I slam the door to the Model T. When I turn to him, he has a dainty hand extended in my direction, waiting for me to take it in greeting.

 

“Yuri Plisetsky” He says, his eyes searching my face for answers I sure as hell am not giving over. I shake his hand, though. God, it’s soft. Working men do not have the luxury of hands bare of calluses and cuts. Who is this guy?  

 

“Otabek Altin,” I respond. That’s as much as this kid is getting, despite his endearing aura and eyes that are greener than any dollar bill I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. This may be a terrible idea that leads to my downfall. Somehow, I feel as though I’d just accelerated down the lost highway I was already on. I was driving at fifty, speeding up the time I had until I hit a dead end.

 

The Model T with Yuri at the wheel isn’t as fast as driving myself, but it sure as hell is faster than walking into town and _that_ is my priority at the moment, I remind myself. I try to reason with myself, rationalize why on earth I just got in a car with a stranger who could turn me in as soon as we hit Dallas.

 

There was another part of me though, that knew that as much as I love the thrill of being chased by the law, the feeling of slipping out from under their noses; I loved chasing boys with pretty eyes just as much.


	3. Filthy Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This boy seemed to be as smooth a walker as he was a talker, and I’d be damned if he never showed his sweet face again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to anyone still reading this that it took me so long. Life got a little crazy with a new job and a lot of life things happening all at once, you know how it is. 
> 
> Again please be wary of the tags! I'd like everyone to be safe and happy. 
> 
> The chapter title comes from "Money Maker" by The Black Keys
> 
> As always, please yell at me on tumblr @ [punktsuki](https://punktsuki.tumblr.com/)

 

**Yuri**

**January 20, 1930**

 

I’m not very smart. I don’t have any sense whatsoever, or so I’ve been told by my father since I was a kid. Viktor would probably agree. I’m honestly not that good at my job, he’s just nice enough to keep me around, I think. He knows I’m about the only thing that’s keeping the bank away from our house after my dad lost his job. I suppose it’s a good thing I got another one up my sleeve, you know, _just in case._  You never know these days. Not that anyone knows about my second job. It just comes in handy when some weeks are rougher than others. Sometimes though, I think it’s kinda funny that after being told that I don’t have the smarts to thrive in this life, _I’m_ the one that’s continuing to keep a roof over _my father’s_ head and not the other way ‘round. We don’t talk about it.

 

Despite me being smart enough to keep the job at Viktor’s, or at the very least keep Viktor in my back pocket, I’m really unsure as to why I thought it was a good idea to pull over and talk to a stranger on the side of the road. Must have been something about that dimpled, Clark Gable smile. Not that I could see it from where I’d been driving by. It really was quite nice up close though, it must have been something else entirely that had lead me to him. I guess I do have a history of acting upon impulse. He was charming, in a sort of guarded way that left me unsure if I wanted to know more about him or if I wanted to run.

 

I tried not stare. Not at those hands that looked to be rough from working, not at the dark complexion of his skin, not at the muscles that seemed to be protruding from his forearms underneath the haphazard way he had scrunched the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, and _definitely_ not at the way his eyes were dark but swirled with the color of whisky in the sun.

 

Keep your eyes on the road, _it’s common sense._ Now is not the time nor the place to be appreciating the aesthetic qualities of strange men, Plisetsky.

 

That… was for later.

 

I had already been late to work before I pulled over in the first place, I didn’t need an accident to make matters worse. I just knew that Viktor was going to give me a talking to about _“bringing in strays from all over the place.”_ But, this man is no stray cat like the rest, though, he may be just as starving. I could tell he wasn’t the kind to show when he’s about to pounce, the expression on his face was blank and had been since he’d slammed the passenger door closed. I don’t really take him for the pouncing type, not at all. With a jaw cut like a blade, I was willing to bet he’d be more inclined to strike like a snake.

 

I’m not entirely sure if the shiver that ran up my arms and down my back was the cause of the venomous possibilities of this stranger, or if it had finally begun to get cold. It was January, after all.

 

We sat in silence for most of the way to Viktor’s Diner. I couldn’t help but wonder how this guy had found himself stranded. Now, I don’t know the first thing when it comes to cars but the car he had been driving looked to be a nice one, a new one. I had to wonder what had been wrong with it, but I kept quiet. I supposed he’d been just as surprised. I glanced over at him now and then. He just seemed to be staring out the window though. Contemplation, maybe? He was kinda fidgety too, twitching his fingers and jigging his right knee to a frantic beat I certainly was not aware of. I had just about come to the conclusion that he was the _quiet type_ when he broke the silence first.

 

“Say, uh. You happen to have a cigarette?” The stranger’s voice, Otabek’s I remembered, was gravelly and he spoke in a tone that suggested he was highly strung. _It is a monday morning_ , I reminded myself. Perhaps he’s late to work too. I didn’t ask though, I simply reached into my breast pocket and produced a somewhat tattered cardboard pack of cigarettes. He took one. He fished for his own pack of matches. I watched as he stuck the cigarette between his hard-set lips, shielding it from the open window on his side, lighting up. The flame flared. It painted his skin in flickers of red and gold. There was _just something_ about a man with a cigarette in his mouth that got to me. My mouth went dry.

 

_What did I say not five minutes ago about staring?_

 

I forced myself to tear my eyes away and look straight on ahead. I mentally made a three step plan in order to get through the morning. It consisted of: getting to work, giving the stranger access to the phone so he can call for a tow, and forgetting that this had ever happened in the first place. I repeated the sequence of events on my list over, my gut twisting in the knowledge that this was not how it would end. I’m not sure how I knew. Hell, maybe I had more sense than my father ever gave me credit for. I just _knew._

 

~ ❈ ~

 

Otabek, the handsome stranger didn’t stick around at the diner too long. He made his call, though I am almost certainly convinced the person on the other end of the line was not Sara, the local mechanic. I heard way too many uttered curses for the man to have been speaking to a person of trade and business, let alone a lady. Not that I knew him, really, but he seemed to be relatively polite when speaking to me, despite his situation.

 

I had offered to get him a good meal but he had graciously refused.

 

“I got a bit of business to do but, thank you kindly for your assistance,” he’d said. I ignored the way my heart thumped hard against the inside of my chest as he flashed a Hollywood smile. The heart is to be ignored when you and everyone else around you has their belly clawing at their spine in hunger. There are always more important things to listen to first. The heart always comes second, or last if it can be helped. Despite close proximity to strangers with charming good looks and enough money for nice automobiles.

 

Feeding your family and making sure your home is still there tomorrow takes priority over the seduction of men who may or may not offer a lifetime of security.

 

Against my better judgement, I watched on as the bell on the front door of the diner jingled and he walked away. I pretended not to notice the swagger in his step despite his apparent misfortune this morning. This boy seemed to be as smooth a walker as he was a talker, and I’d be damned if he never showed his sweet face again.

 

I tried to focus on earning my tips for the remainder of the day.

 

~ ❈ ~

 

Tips are hard to come by in this day and age. Nobody’s got anything left to give, really. And I do understand. Sometimes though, you have to sell something a little more. Find your target audience. The poor are only getting poorer, after all. Sometimes, you have to sell something nobody else is willing or able to.

 

I meet them here. They fuck me here. Sometimes we take it to the bathroom or the parking lot. But here, is where we both get what we want. Sex, cash, and sworn secrecy.

 

The cover of the night does most of my work for me, really. The location helps too.

 

The theatre is the one place I feel most comfortable. I suppose, despite it being a popular and populated location, most clients are comfortable with this setting as well. It’s neutral ground for them, and a fantasy for me.The ceilings ordained in gold, the curtains draped in red remind me of both royalty and blood. The wall of sound, the music, and most of all the darkness of the room is so welcoming to me. The darkness allows me to think that for an hour I can be different. I can be whoever I want. It allows me to hide, and it allows me to dream by seeing the stars on screen. It also allows me to get my job done.

 

It’s in the darkness of the theatre that men can trick themselves into believing that I’m just as feminine as any number of the girls that won’t give them the same attention. It’s here that I make believe that I am someone, someone that men would be willing to take out on the town. It is here that I run my business while everyone else is preoccupied by the spectacle of film leisure.

 

It is also here, that I see him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments keep me alive :) 
> 
> Please, yell at me on tumblr @ punktsuki


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